Electronic image converters, i.e. pickup tubes and the tubes in the receiving sets normally have a contrast range in the order of magnitude of 60:1 and therefore cannot properly process the contrast ranges of magnitude of several hundreds to one which are present in natural scenes, slides, etc. Under these conditions, the characteristic transfer curve is subjected to an additional contrast correction following the usual gamma correction.
A contrast correction system for a color television system having a plurality of pickup tubes is described in German Published Patent Application DE AS No. 26 49 781, to which U.S. Pat. No. 4,152,720, FENTON, corresponds. In this system, two multipliers are used. It is therefore relatively expensive. Further, the contrast is changed in this system throughout the whole amplitude region, that is it is changed as much for the darker as it is for the lighter portions of the picture.